Max Creutz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Max Creutz (born December 8, 1876 in Aachen , † March 13, 1932 in Krefeld ) was a German art historian , director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Cologne and the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld .

life and work

Max Creutz, born in Aachen, attended the Progymnasium in Jülich and the Gymnasium in Düren, where he received the certificate of maturity in 1897. His father was named Max Creutz and was the Royal District Rentmaster . Creutz first studied art history in Vienna, where he also attended a painting school. In Munich, but especially at the University of Berlin , he pursued philosophical, historical and art-historical studies, at the same time he continued his self-taught painting. In between there are trips through Germany, Italy, Belgium and Holland. On March 16, 1901, he submitted his inaugural dissertation to the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Berlin for a doctorate. The theme: Masaccio , trying to classify his works in terms of style and chronology . Then came a time as a research assistant at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin , where he edited the new edition of the art manual (1904). He was also the editor in charge of the Berlin architecture world . From 1908 he was director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Cologne .

At the end of 1911, wishes were expressed in the Deutscher Werkbund, founded in 1907, for its own representative exhibition. Carl Rehorst , the Cologne Werkbund board member, absolutely wanted the exhibition for his city and immediately initiated the establishment of an association with himself at the helm as executive chairman, with Lord Mayor Max Wallraf and the chairman of the German Werkbund Peter Bruckmann . Initially only Karl Ernst Osthaus and Max Creutz were involved on the part of the Werkbund as “local representatives”. As the first deputy secretary for the Cologne Werkbund exhibition , he commented on the urban changes in 1913: “Rehorst tries a balancing act between“ preserving the old townscape ”and“ building the new one ”. […] It is particularly thanks to Karl Rehorst that he treated the stepchildren of architecture in particular when faced with the great difficulties: utility and industrial buildings with the same love as the representative buildings in the city. ”Rehorst had repeatedly adapted and re-adjusted the overall plan organized the implementation with a huge staff of city officials until the site was opened on May 15, 1914. The “Cologne House” on the site was built under the direction of a committee chaired by Max Creutz based on plans by Ludwig Paffendorf .

In 1919 the exhibition of the Wilhelm Clemens Collection was opened in the Kunstgewerbemuseum Cologne. The Rhinelander Creutz was one of the few people who was fully initiated into the collector's activities of the painter Clemens.

In 1922 Max Creutz moved from Cologne to Krefeld to succeed Friedrich Deneken , who had been director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum for a quarter of a century before him. The fact that Max Creutz was even available for a position in Krefeld was due to a social scandal. He is said to have had a relationship with the wife of a department head, which led to his dismissal in 1916. Before he could later take up his position as director in Krefeld, he needed a very personal letter of recommendation from the then mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer , who blamed the woman for the affair. This letter allayed the concerns of the decision-makers and Max Creutz was able to take up his duties in October 1922.

While Deneken's focus was initially on the modern arts and crafts of Art Nouveau, Art Nouveau and Impressionism, Creutz shifted the exhibition and purchase policy to modernism , the contemporary art of the time . He believed that a museum of contemporary art needs not only exhibitions but also purchases. Soon, not only works by the so-called German Impressionists, but also the Brücke painters , the Blauer Reiter and works from Rhenish Expressionism were part of the museum's collection, and in numerous exhibitions Creutz attempted a connection between the abundant works of the Middle Ages and the artists of his time to manufacture.

In addition to important individual works such as “Marine verte” (1925) by Max Ernst , “Sintflut” (1912) by Wassily Kandinsky , and the “Symphonie Schwarz-Rot” (1929) by Alexej von Jawlensky , there were works by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Erich Heckel , Heinrich Nauen and Heinrich Campendonk added. In autumn 1923 Max Creutz had invited the Thorn Prikker student Heinrich Campendonk to his first solo exhibition. Only reverse glass paintings by the young artist were shown, which the museum man valued for their luminosity and proximity to folk art. The picture "Pierrot with Snake" by Campendonk, acquired in 1923, has currently been restored and exhibited again.

In 1923, Max Creutz succeeded in bringing the mobile model collection (traveling exhibitions of exemplary applied arts) of the Deutscher Werkbund of the German Museum for Art in Trade and Industry with well over 2000 objects and graphic works by the most important modern designers from the period 1900 to 1914 to Krefeld, especially after the close cooperation with the Hagener of the art patron and art collector Karl Ernst Osthaus since 1911, after his death, and the dissolution of the Osthaus-Museum with important, in some respects unique collections.

In the same year he commissioned Johan Thorn Prikker with monumental murals for his museum. On the desired main topic “life”, Thorn Prikker depicted life phases in a cycle from childhood to ripe old age in four pictures.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe built the villas on Wilhelmshofallee , today's museums, for Hermann Lange (1874–1942) and his friend Josef Esters . Max Creutz was for Hermann Lange, who co-founded the association "New Art" in Krefeld and Creutz, supported in numerous enterprises that served to promote modern art, and was the main contact for the architect Mies van der Rohe. Hermann Lange, with the help of his sponsorship group, supported him in numerous ventures that served to promote modern art.

Max Creutz was married to Käthe, née Schütze. This was the sister of the painter, graphic artist and women's rights activist Ilse Schütze (1868–1923), who was married to Ernst Schur . Both were also active as authors. In the Lexicon of German Women in the Pen , by Sophie Pataky, it is written that Käthe Schütze wrote feature articles for daily newspapers. In 1901 the humoresque "Käthe Karlchen und ich" was published by Hermann Eichblatt-Verlag, Berlin. Both authors are represented several times in the magazine Kunstgewerbe für's Haus . Ilse Schütze-Schur died in Krefeld in 1923. The dates of death of Käthe Schütze-Creutz are not known.

Creutz died in 1932 at the age of 55 and did not have to see how an essential part of his life's work was destroyed in 1937 by the expropriation and sale of the expressionist collection of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum.

Publications (selection)

  • Julius Lessing, Max Creutz: Tapestries and ceilings of the Middle Ages in Germany. Wasmuth, Berlin 1901
  • Art Handbook for Germany , first edition 1904
  • The Charlottenburg town hall. in: Berliner Architekturwelt. Volume 8, 1906
  • Otto Andreae , Max Creutz: Cölnischer Kunstgewerbe-Verein. XVIII. Annual report of the Kunstgewerbe-Museum der Stadt Cöln for 1908. DuMont, Cologne, 1909
  • Hermann Lüer , Max Creutz: History of metal art. Volume 2: Max Creutz: Art History of Noble Metals. Enke, Stuttgart 1909
  • Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Creutz: The Tietz department store in Düsseldorf. Wasmuth, Berlin 1909
  • Max Creutz: Guide to the Kunstgewerbe-Museum der Stadt Köln , 1914
  • Max Creutz: Secular buildings by Friedrich Patzer , Wassmuth, Berlin, 1912
  • Max Creutz: Banks and other administrative buildings , Wassmuth, Berlin, 1911
  • Max Creutz: Martin Dülfer , Berlin, 1910
  • The Tiez department store in Elberfeld, by Prof. Wilhelm Kreis , X. special edition of the architecture of the XX. Century. Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin 1912 digitized

literature

  • Gudrun M. König: Consumer culture: staged world of goods around 1900 , Böhlau, 2007, ISBN 978-3-205-77661-1 , p. 117
  • Sabine Röder: Max Creutz and the struggle for modernity in the 1920s In: Reiner Stamm (Hrsg.): Catalog: Farbwelten Bremen 2009, ISBN 978-3-9810296-4-2 , pp. 20–35.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Photo: Max Creutz and Fritz Witte , Max Creutz (1876–1932), director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum and Fritz Witte (1876–1937), director of the Schnütgen Museum , on kulturelles-erbe-koeln.de, accessed on May 13, 2016 Kulturelles-erbe-koeln.de, accessed on May 13, 2016
  2. ^ Deutscher Werkbund: preparation for the Werkbund exhibition in 1914
  3. ^ Max Creutz: The redesign of the Cologne cityscape. in: Yearbook of the German Werkbund 1913 (The art in industry and trade). Jena 1913, p. 84
  4. ↑ Wilhelm Clemens, the art collector, pp. 26-27 , Peter Zenker: Wilhelm Clemens from Neurath, painter, art collector, donor (PDF), on peter-zenker.de, accessed on May 13, 2016
  5. ↑ Petra Diederichs: Like new again: Campendonk's most beautiful work . Max Creutz, director of the KWM until 1932, acquired it for the collection , Rheinische Post on February 13, 2016, accessed on May 13, 2016
  6. ^ Document from the Karl Ernst Osthaus archive, annual report of the German Museum for Art in Commerce and Industry from 1911/12
  7. ^ Document from the Karl Ernst Osthaus archive, annual report of the German Museum for Art in Commerce and Industry from 1912/13
  8. ↑ Max Creutz: The new monumental pictures Thorn-Prikkers in the Krefeld Kaiser Wilhelm Museum . , Art for everyone: painting, sculpture, graphics, architecture, March 1924, pp. 184–189
  9. ↑ Mies - builder of the silk barons
  10. ^ Peter Pfister: Ilse Schütze-Schur - a forgotten social democratic artist of the early 20th century. , to the Friedrich Ebert Foundation
personal data
SURNAME Creutz, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Creutz, Max (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1932
Place of death Krefeld